> I know this is all rather off-topic and I don't want to continue in that
> direction, but I am curious as to whether the list members who are parents
> want their own children to major in Classics or biblical languages.

Don,

While I have not proposed a *major* in classics or biblical languages, I was pleased
when my son chose to take classical (read that Biblical) hebrew as a foreign language
in college. This I found especially encouraging as his major (accounting) does not
have *any* foreign language requirement. As icing to the cake, his school is a state
university. In fact, one of our listmembers is teaching greek there this year.
(He's apparently "on loan" from the Southern Baptist school down the road.)

Perhaps, instead of fighting the flow by pushing our children toward unpopular
majors, we as parents might want to include questions as to the strength of the
language departments in our investigations of schools. This would accomplish two
things: it would let the schools know that languages are considered important by a
segment of their target group, and it would increase the likelihood that our children
will at least be exposed to the biblical and classical languages. And, if we get
enough of these "non-majors" to take the courses, I strongly suspect that we will
find more who are willing to consider concentrating their studies in these areas.